Installer says it can't be installed.....wtf.

[Jared Twomey]

i've also been installing for several years, and I have had my share of NLOS... I install out in the middle of no-where... trees all over the place. I have a friend that installs D* in the city of ST Louis, and he doesnt hardly ever has NLOS, cause there are very little trees where he works

 

[ZandarKoad]

Both cities and forests will have their share of no line of sight... I've been workin in Milwaukee for three years and I've had well over fifty no LOS. I agree with hillsmi. Of course, in that number I'm counting apartment installs that couldn't be done because the landlords flatly refused any and all dish installs (on some occasions). Depending on how you count, I guess I could make that claim too.

"I've never had to down a job because of NLOS." I always tell the customer it's totally possible if we install a 35' antenna tower, but they never want to pay the $550.00, so they always cancel!

 

[Van]

errr, no

As E* doesn't have a bird at 101W, it can't be compared with a D* bird at 101W can it?

If you want to compare E* and D* birds, they can only be compared at 110W and 119W.

Now who's talking about dumbest statements? Yes it can be compared when the 101w sat is still used, if your thinking that I was saying that the direct sat(s) sit higher in space then you made a goof mistake. When testing for a signal in an iffy sutuation based on line of sight or a repair on a crooked mount a tech does the down and to the right method to find the satellites such as this.

....X

.........x

.............x

....................x

........................x

.................................x

 

[Van]

Its like when I had the fire at my house last year and moved into a rental house in the middle of Tree City. Any Dish installer would have said no way in hell, but the way I got it installed was using a Dish500 on the garage to see 129/119, and then I got a tripod and put it on a 15 foot pole on the top of the house!

I installed in Royal Oak and in Ann Arbor many times as a dish installer as did many of the people I worked with, matter of fact my certification install was done on a Royal Oak home just north of downtown where the tree's are worst.

My installers do not come back with NLOS! They know I will go out and give a 2nd opinion to the customer, and they will know I will make them look like an idiot when they ask me the next day if there was a line of site and I tell the customer that I already did the installation

So your telling me that your installers have never had any legitimate no line of sites at all? Then this might explain why I would get alot of sub contractor installs where the dish's were pointing into tree's.

 

[rcdallas]

Down in Texas it would be hard to call NLOS, whats the elevation 40+? What about say Arizona, you can't compare regions like that to say the Midwest/North East.

I've been on a few new connects where the customer had an older DirecTV dish and the elevation on the dish is about 35 degrees, whereas I set my elevation at 32 on a 500 - 110 is at 34, 119 is at 30, 129 is at 26.

It fair to say in this region Direc single dishes is aiming higher in the sky.

 

[tysonwetzel]

It may not be possible..... to install a dish on a roof covered in snow and ice.

 

[cosmo_kramer]

It may not be possible..... to install a dish on a roof covered in snow and ice.

But, the OP was told "sorry can't be done, tree in the way", not "too much snow and ice, I'll be back in the spring...."

 

[Hall]

I guess from the installer's point of view, he/she would rather say "No LOS" vs "I was scared to get up on the icy roof". In some people's eyes, that means "I didn't want to do it". Mind you, I do NOT blame them and wouldn't do it myself.

 

[Van]

I did my fair share of snow covered roof walks but only if the pitch was easy and there was no ice under the snow wich was easy to tell was wether or not there were any blotch area's. On average I would walk 6 - 20 snow covered roofs a winter to access an existing dish or install one on a fascia or wall or chimney mostly.

Oh as to another poster on here questioning someones statement about never having had a no go install, I can say that atleast from the standpoint of location such as the deep south then its possible to not have any nlos due to tree's or structures but as for other reasons for no go installs then I to would question the poster.

 

[ZandarKoad]

I did my fair share of snow covered roof walks but only if the pitch was easy and there was no ice under the snow wich was easy to tell was wether or not there were any blotch area's. On average I would walk 6 - 20 snow covered roofs a winter to access an existing dish or install one on a fascia or wall or chimney mostly.

Oh as to another poster on here questioning someones statement about never having had a no go install, I can say that atleast from the standpoint of location such as the deep south then its possible to not have any nlos due to tree's or structures but as for other reasons for no go installs then I to would question the poster.

Ah, true that. I suppose once you get far enough south, you're under the bird. Then you have to start drilling holes in the center of the reflector so the water can drain out when it rains.

 

[dishcomm]

So guy shows up today, snow and ice everywhere, I said to myself "I bet he says it can't be done".........

gets out of truck walks around yard, looks through his lil spy glass and says "sorry can't be done, tree in the way"

So I go and look at my neighbor who has direct tv, and sure enough, if you act like the beam comes STRAIGHT in the trees block it, but I was under the impression that the signal comes in at a high angle......

He had a dishnetwork van..........should i ask for someone else to come out? or should I trust this guy?

No two properties are alike...I get this all the time..."My neighbor has it"...My response is "you have trees in your yard..Your neighbor does not"..
But in all fairness it seems to me the tech didn't check the entirety of your property...Get a second opinion...All "no line of sight" customers are offered a second opinion by Dish....One thing..Was your roof snow covered..Icy?...Was the ground snow covered or iced over?....These conditions can make satellite installs difficult..But not impossible....

 

[dishcomm]

I have been installing dish for several years now and have never had a "can't install" situation. guess i am just lucky.

say what?....You've never had a no line of sight?...Cmon...I realize that Nebraska has less trees than other places but no blockages?..

 

[dishcomm]

I have been installing since '95. I live in the mountains and yes I get a can't install about every 3-4 months. Most of the time because of trees....most of the time ower cuts trees on the spot or call back after someone else does. However deep in the mountains I have 95% success rate but yes there are times that I get to the site, and shake my head before I start, 'cause I just know.

I acn get to a house and instantly tell if there's no hope...But I get out and go over the propery and check it out..I don't make any money if it doesn't go in..But one thing I will not do is recommend trees to be cut..I will not take on the liability...If the homewoner asks which trees I always go way overboard....This stops the nonsense right away..Most poeple with a lick of common sense won't spend serveral thousand dollars to have trees cut down just to watch tv....I have been on jobs that I should have walked away from..But I just can't do it. DNSC sucks with theirstupid "no charge " rules..Many jobs Dish considers standard are really custom work...I have gotten ot the point where I will no longer do biig all day jobs without charging the customer for non standard work...I have ot make a living too....Evenetually, E* is going to have to get away from the notion that they can give customers a "free" install....either that or E* will be left with lots of crappy inexperienced installers who will do substandard work..

 

[dishcomm]

It really depends on the time of day and the type of installation that will determine if a Job is treed out. If the installer shows up 10 minutes to 5pm, its more than likely is going to be called NLOS, than if the installer showed up at 8am.

I find alot of these installers have a personal quote and once they made X amount of money in a given week they simply do not want to work anymore!

Perfect example is the installer who works for my company. There will be weeks where im booked solid, and then I got to hear him complain there is too much work and he will try putting off jobs for the following week and me and him will get into an arguement over it because I want the Jobs installed NOW so I can get paid faster from DISH and so the customer does not call around and find someone else. Then on the weeks where we are not busy, I got to hear that he is not going to make a good check.

The truth is that you take the good with the bad, do the work when your busy and save the extra money you make for the weeks your not as busy!

But getting back to the origional question, what DISH Network and Directv need to start doing is penalizing installers and Regional service providers for Jobs that are NLOS that are later installed by a local dealer or another installer

Just as an example, my local non-completion rate is about 3-5%. When I figure in my national sales, its about 10%.

What the installers do not realize what goes into getting a sale, and how important it is to make sure every single one is installed. Some of these installers do not appreciate the hard work that goes into getting a sale and don't realize what it takes to get another sale to replace it.

It's good that you take care in sellling the product properly..However many sales parttners do a poor job at selling..They mislead and even lie to the customer to get them to say yes..Then I get the duty of re-selling the job...I am burning daylight doing a salesman's job..He collects the commission for the deal but I sell it..That sounds about fair to me..
I think if the customers took some responsibilty and had to pay for non standard work, there would be a lot less horsecrap in this business....One of the reasons why some techs walk off jobs they can do is because the job just isn't worth the aggrevation, time and material...It just isn't..I am not saying only the easy or gravy jobs should be done..But when you have to to crawl through two attics to do three wall fishes for free or a crawlspace that is split three ways, the balance sheet goes to red...The problem is there is no advocacy for the tech doing the work...The prevailing notion is that the hard jobs are made up by the easy ones..That is crap...There is no balance in this business...The retailers think they pay too much, the customers think they should pay nothing and the techs think they don't get paid enough..No one is happy.... My costs are going up dramtically and I am being told that E*'s pay rates are going down....I used to love this business..Now it's drudgery..I just do it for the check . I can't wait to get out of it...

 

[dishcomm]

He sighted from the ground.......the ladder never left his truck.

very rarely i can tell from the ground if a roof mount won't go..99.9% of the time I get the ladder out ..If I can get on the roof and move about safely, I will cover all areas of the roof to find a sight....If I must work form the ladder because the roof is to steep to walk I will do just that..Check from the ladder..

 

[dishcomm]

Another thing I should chime in and say is that alot of installers may have an inclinometor but do not know how to be creative and properly use it.

For example, alot of technicians don't think past the box. If your on the roof and can only see 110, but go on the ground and can only see 119, then logic would dictate that you need 2 Dishes.

Its like when I had the fire at my house last year and moved into a rental house in the middle of Tree City. Any Dish installer would have said no way in hell, but the way I got it installed was using a Dish500 on the garage to see 129/119, and then I got a tripod and put it on a 15 foot pole on the top of the house!

But there are other factors involved, you cannot have the inclometor by anything metal, this will include an aluminum ladder, gutters or even as something as small as a wrist watch!

The other thing you got to watch is how you hold it, many times I'll ballance it with just 2 fingers.

But it just takes time to learn how to properly use it!

My installers do not come back with NLOS! They know I will go out and give a 2nd opinion to the customer, and they will know I will make them look like an idiot when they ask me the next day if there was a line of site and I tell the customer that I already did the installation

tri pods, 15 foot poles and the other ulitmate McGyver solutions are fine if you have one job all day and the customer is willing ot fork over lots of cash for this stuff...First, no one carries these items on their trucks. Second, the customer for the most part will not pay a dime for the non standard work...I'm not eating it...
Now In all fairness I have used two dish solutions..It's a hassle getting E* to modify the w/o and it can be time consuming..Our time is very precious...but it beats leaving the job alone...However I cannot afford to do this all the time...

 

[dishcomm]

Wait a minute, the OP said it was snowy and icy with a keyword of ROOF. Factor in it's going to be dark out soon from the time you have given.

Would you go on the roof under these circumstances? With all this based on the only option for LOS was the roof with the given facts?

Granted I wasn't there, I don't know if there was actually snow and ice on the roof, but I do know that cold shingles make for no traction add the factor of the pitch of the roof, go from there.

Now that I'm on this, I'll goto say if your house smells like crap due to the wife not picking up the dog poo all over the basement floor and you have a dozen kids running around the half naked constantly in my way from doing my job correctly you can bet I'll drive off and not look back. Yeah I've been there and done installs under those conditions with the customer that demands something for nothing. I love it when people move into there new home and don't bother to mention that they don't even have a tv on site and expect the system to be installed and functioning and want to know how to use it before I leave. It's a real kicker when the husband okay's everything during the walk through, then as your ready to walk out the door with your signed paperwork and wife comes home and starts bitching that she doesn't like where the dish was installed, nor that one tv has be on channel 73 or the universal remote will not work with their television set. Next thing you know you get hit with a trouble call. DING!

I have a very high completion rate on all jobs with very low come backs due to failed equipment, but with out a shadow of a doubt NO tv is worth my safety nor your safety.

Inclinometers are easy to use, you just need to know where your birds sit in the sky, to some they don't want to know how to use it simply because it means they'd have to do the job.

Almost all my installs are right on the ground, where they should be to begin with.

I love my job, I take pride in my work and it shows, I'm not pointing anybody out of crowd but take in the whole picture please.

Hey welcome to the club!...I go thru this stuff all the time..
Some on here don't have a clue..All they know is their situation...you and I are out there in the trenches..

 

[Van]

Ah, true that. I suppose once you get far enough south, you're under the bird. Then you have to start drilling holes in the center of the reflector so the water can drain out when it rains.

Yea my second year with dish I went to Atlanta to do a massive multi state customer buyout of bellsouths wireless cable service and I didnt have a single no liner from tree's though there was one I wasnt sure of and set it up for a second opinion.

 

[Van]

Being able to tell if a roof mount is a no liner for me was generaly easy and I didnt have to get on the roof unless it was a to close to call situation and I had only one that I called as a no liner be wrong and that was years ago.

Dish does not use tripid mounts on structures anymore due to the wind damage that it can cause. I had done several before dish stopped the practice and the tallest I ever did was 12ft with the tripod and it was only going to last her a year at best but she said she wanted it and ofcourse those in charge said make it go.

I spent %80 of the time repairing bad sales to new and existing customers from third party resellers such as sbc, vmc, and other companies that would even go so far as to tell an existing customer to cancell their account and then build them a new one with an altered address, I get the work order at 7am and can already tell what that job is going to be like and ofcourse I always called corporate when I got there.

 

[velasco581]

Reply to NLOS

I've been with E* almost a year now and have had a couple NLOS's. I myself while walking to a customer's house check out my compass/inclinometer and see what it will take. I do what I can for the customer and for the company I work for. When I believe it might be a NLOS I usually build a test dish hook it up to my meter and walk around and try different spots either on the floor for a pole, on the roof...just about anywhere on the customers property. If I walk around with the Dish for 1-2 hours then I call it NLOS. I do this because I love to see myself as a platinum tech and the pay for it. Also, in my office any NLOS has to be verified by an FSM.

With all that said I still take my well being over giving the customer tv. I do not go on roofs that have ice on them or heavy amounts of snow. I call it in as incomplete due to weather conditions. I have also seen tech's install 3 dish's on a customer's roof in completely different spots just to get the job done. This to me seems like a little much to me.

With all that said, I know there are a set of lazy tech's out there and would call in and ask for another tech for a second opinion.